Updated 5:30 p.m. | President Donald Trump on Thursday declared the nations’s opioid crisis a “national health emergency,” saying the country would fight the drug epidemic as a “national family.”

“This is a worldwide problem,” he said, flanked by public health officials, families with small children and first lady Melania Trump in the East Room of the White House. “It’s just been so long in making. Addressing it will require all of our effort.”

President Donald Trump will declare the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency on Thursday, according to senior administration officials.

The declaration would direct all federal agencies to make the crisis their number one priority. It would include awareness and prevention programs and allow the federal government to work with states to redistribute already-available grants that support substance abuse efforts.

Trump “supports the process” of trying to find a short-term fix to the 2010 health care law, but he “doesn’t support the result,” a White House official said of the efforts by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

President Donald Trump spent early Monday morning slamming congressional Democrats for not supporting a proposed tax overhaul and then sent a personal message to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the Iran deal.

“Dem Senator Schumer hated the Iran deal made by President Obama, but now that I am involved, he is OK with it,” Trump tweeted to his more than 40 million followers. “Tell that to Israel, Chuck!”

House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairwoman Linda T. Sánchez is ready to move up in the ranks, and she’s not afraid to say so on television.

On Thursday, the California Democrat called on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer and Assistant Minority Leader James E. Clyburn to leave their posts after the 2018 election and make way for up-and-coming lawmakers, like herself, to have a chance at the top.

Nearly one-third of respondents to a new Economist/YouGov survey strongly opposed the GOP tax framework released last week, and nearly the same number believed their own taxes would stay the same under the plan.

The Arizona Republican was convicted in 2013 of 17 out of 32 counts in a federal corruption trial. The felonies included extortion, conspiracy, insurance fraud and money laundering during his time representing the state’s 1st congressional district. He served a three year sentence and was released from prison in January.

Nearly half of Americans surveyed in a new poll believe the tough rhetoric between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un of North Korea is more than just a war of words.

Close to 50 percent of the 1,500 people polled in the latest Economist/YouGov survey believed Trump “actually means to attack North Korea” while 45 percent believe Kim intends to do the same to the United States.

President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the Senate has enough votes to pass a bill aimed at repealing and replacing the 2010 health care law — but not in time for the Sept. 30 deadline.

But the president’s vote count also came with confusion — and no details of just what version of a bill he believes could pass the Senate one day after GOP leadership pulled a measure sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy that would have overhauled the U.S. health care system.

Vice President Mike Pence opted not to make a last-ditch pitch to Republican senators Tuesday to vote for the GOP’s latest health care bill.

Instead, Republican senators leaving their weekly lunch at the Capitol said Pence focused on how Congress could provide disaster aid to U.S. territories devastated by a string of recent hurricanes, pivoting from one of the president’s central campaign promises. Shortly after the lunch, GOP leaders said they were shelving a vote.

President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted he believed Facebook’s intent to turn Kremlin-linked ads over to congressional committees investigating influence over the 2016 presidential election to be part of what he considered the “Russia hoax.”

The social media site’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday it would turn over 3,000 Russia-linked ads after two weeks on the defensive amid growing pressure from Congress for it to expose Russian propaganda in which fictional people posed as American activists, The New York Times reported.

As the Senate intends next week to consider yet another iteration of a bill to replace the 2010 health care law, the latest Economist/YouGov poll shows about one-third of those surveyed believe legislation should expand and fundamentally change the law.

Forty percent of respondents said they would support a single-payer system in which insurance comes from one government source financed by taxes, while 29 percent were opposed to that idea.

Nearly three-fourths of Americans surveyed in the latest Economist/YouGov poll believe North Korea is the country’s biggest enemy as President Donald Trump continues to issue threats to Kim Jung Un’s government on a near-daily basis.

Before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said the United States was prepared to “totally destroy” North Korea if the regime does not give up its nuclear arms and missile program.

Analysis | President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders almost never shy away from engaging in a war of words. But the president, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer wove such a tight knot of confusion Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that not even they seemed to know how to untangle it.

Sowing the seeds of vague political promises is classic Trump. On the campaign trail, the Republican presidential candidate often touted his negotiating skills as a billionaire New York real estate mogul.

Most of the harshness was directed at Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who led the meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in his capacity as vice chairman. Vice President Mike Pence, the panel’s chairman, was not present.